3 Television - Federal Communications Commission
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
3 Television
Broadcast TV
The FCC began licensing experimental television stations as early as 1937, but sponsorship of programs by ad-
vertisers was forbidden during this testing phase. Almost immediately after World War II war ended, the FCC was
hit with 158 new applications, many of them from newspaper and radio companies trying to head off anticipated
competition. By 1948 there were 34 stations operating in 21 different cities, broadcasting to over one million televi-
sion sets.1 Newspaper companies owned over 33 percent of those stations, and by 1952 that figure had climbed to 45
percent.2
The New York Daily News applied for an ownership license in 1946, despite New York’s already having three
stations. Its managers had hit on an idea for differentiation: feature local news instead of the 15-minute national and
international news broadcasts shown by the network stations. “Our plan was for a people’s newscast,” explained
Leavitt Pope, an executive of Channel 11. It aired in the form of Telepix Newsreel, two local nightly newscasts filling a
10-minute slot at 7:30 p.m. and a 15-minute slot at 11 p.m., after the prime-time shows had finished. Channel 11 grew
popular, particularly because it allowed viewers to see events hours after they occurred, rather than having to wait for
national and international footage to reach stations days later.3 Successful local newscasts sprouted in Chicago and
Los Angeles at around the same time.4
Stations that were owned and operated by networks (O&Os)5 began to add their own local news segments:
New York’s WNBC in 1954, followed by CBS’s WTOP in Washington, D.C., WBBM in Chicago, and WCAU in Phila-
delphia. Initially, their coverage was limited to a “man-on-camera” format—an anchor reading telegraph announce-
ments.6 Then New York’s WPIX began to enliven its newscast by including extensive interviews; and WBAP’sTexas
Newsreel experimented by doing away with the anchor altogether.7
Between 1945 and 1952, television’s audience grew from being almost nonexistent to including more than
33 percent of American households. Advertising spending rose, too. In 1952, 6 percent of all advertising spending,
or $454 million, went to television ads; by 1960, $1.6 billion, or 13 percent, did. During that period, advertising con-
sisted of one-minute commercials, infomercial-like programs that were
While many newspapers have 15 to 30 minutes in duration, and sponsorship of whole shows. National
advertising made up more than half of all television advertising between
been printing fewer pages, the 1949 and 1952.8
average number of hours of Television journalism did not truly find its stride until the 1950s
news aired by local TV stations when national news gained widespread popularity. NBC and CBS were
each producing 15-minute newscasts that ran once a day: Camel News
has increased by 35% in the Caravan with John Cameron Swayze and Douglas Edwards with the News,
last seven years. respectively. Beginning in 1951, CBS’s See It Now, hosted by Edward R.
Murrow, devoted 30 minutes to in-depth coverage of a news event or con-
troversial public figure.9 The popularity of such programs prompted NBC and CBS to lengthen their news slot to an
hour in 1963, devoting a half hour each to local and network news.10
The networks began offering special events coverage, as well. Broadcasts of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, Soviet
ruler Nikita Khrushchev’s 1959 visit to the United States, and other such events drew audiences fascinated by the
chance to see history for themselves. When the networks dedicated airtime to the McCarthy hearings, their daytime
ratings increased by about 50 percent.11 And, in an early indication of TV news’ potential influence, See It Now’s exten-
sive coverage helped turn public opinion against McCarthy.12 During the four days of nearly nonstop coverage follow-
ing President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the average home had the TV on for over 13 hours a day, and
93 percent of American homes tuned in during his burial.13 By the end of the decade, two-thirds of Americans said TV
was their most-viewed, most-believed medium for newsgathering.14
72TV networks valued their news operations. Why they did is open to debate, but former newsman Ted Koppel argues:
“To the degree that broadcast news was a more virtuous operation 40 years ago, it was a function of both fear and innocence.
Network executives were afraid that a failure to work in the ‘public interest, convenience and necessity,’ as set forth in the
Radio Act of 1927, might cause the Federal Communications Commission to suspend or even revoke their licenses. The three
major broadcast networks pointed to their news divisions (which operated at a loss or barely broke even) as evidence that
they were fulfilling the FCC’s mandate. News was, in a manner of speaking, the loss leader that permitted NBC, CBS and ABC
to justify the enormous profits made by their entertainment divisions....
“On the innocence side of the ledger, meanwhile, it never occurred to the network brass that news programming could be
profitable.... Until, that is, CBS News unveiled its ‘60 Minutes’ news magazine in 1968. When, after three years or so, ‘60
Minutes’ turned a profit (something no television news program had previously achieved), a light went on, and the news
divisions of all three networks came to be seen as profit centers, with all the expectations that entailed.”15
At the local level, there is no dispute that news has long been profitable for TV stations. In the 1950s, local
stations would typically air their own half-hour news, weather, and sports programming directly before the network
newscast, and deliver a short local summary directly following the network news.16 By the 1960s and 1970s, many
stations were airing more of their own news programming than of that provided to them by networks.17Local news
was inexpensive to produce compared with entertainment programming, and it proved even more profitable, because
local stations could sell and retain all the revenue from advertising during their local segments, rather than having
to return a significant portion to networks, as they did during network programming.18 As local news programs be-
came more common, television stations relied on their two to three half-hour newscasts for more than half of their
profits.19
The Changing Economics of Modern Local TV News
Local TV news continued to grow and prosper over the next four decades, but by 2008 signs that the industry was
entering a new era became apparent. At first, it seemed that perhaps the only difference between the economics of
local TV news and local newspapers was a few years—that the economic forces that had devastated newspapers would
soon take a toll on the revenue of local TV stations, and therefore their newsrooms. The broadcast audience continued
its drift to cable, satellite, and the Internet.
Broadcast vs. Ad-supported cable viewing
Household Primetime Share Levels (percent)
Broadcasters** Ad-Supported Cable
60 60.0%
50
40
36.0%
30
2000–2001 2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010 2010–2011
STD*
*2010–2011 Season-to-date: 09/20/10–04/03/11 (28 weeks); Live + Same Day.
**Broadcasters included: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, Ion, MNT & NBC.
Source: Cable Advertising Bureau (CAB) analysis of Nielsen data.20
73The economic changes from 2005 to 2008 hit local news-producing stations especially hard.
Average Station Revenue of News-Producing Stations (1995–2009)
Nominal (in millions) Adjusted for Inflation (in millions)
$33
$31
$29
$27
$25
$23
$21
$19
$17
$15
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Source: Pew State of the News Media 2011, citing MediaAccess Pro, BIA/Kelsey Group21
In comments filed with the Future of Media project, the National Association of Broadcasters said local TV
news pre-tax profits declined 56.3 percent from 1998 to 2008—and that the drop was even sharper, 62.9 percent, in
smaller cities (media markets number 150–210).22
But many local TV stations remain highly profitable.
Financial Performance of
According to survey data compiled by the National Associa-
Local TV Stations (2005–2009)
tion of Broadcasters, a local TV station in 2009 with average
National Average
net revenues and cash flow would have a cash flow margin of
Net Pre-Tax
nearly 23 percent of revenues. Year Revenues Cash Flow Profits
And local TV news had a strong year in 2010. While the 2005 $15,418,056 $5,484,728 $3,512,208
rest of the economy was struggling, local TV stations’ revenue
2006 $16,849,704 $6,290,389 $4,210,359
rose. Ad spending on local TV in the first three quarters of 2010
2007 $16,147,873 $5,258,288 $3,320,667
was up 27 percent from the same period in 2009, according
2008 $15,837,222 $4,703,953 $2,686,481
to a TVB analysis of Kantar Media data. Total local TV 2010 ad
revenue was up 17 percent from 2009, repworted BIA/Kelsey.24 2009 $13,453,516 $3,071,995 $1,125,630
The reasons, according to industry analyst SNL Kagan: Source: NAB, Television Financial Reports, various years23
“TV station revenue has been going gangbusters in 2010 thanks to the return of auto ad spending, a strengthening of core
categories and influx of political dollars.”25
Indeed, news seems to be playing an increasing role in TV stations’ overall finances. Pew’s State of the News
Media 2010 report notes that the high percentage of income derived from news—44.7 percent in 2009—is “increas-
ingly significant when considering the average television station that produces news airs an average of just 4 hours
and 36 minutes of news per weekday. Advertising from the rest of the day—more than 19 hours—represents the
remaining 56 percent of revenues.”27
There are several reasons that the economic prospects for local broadcast stations and their news operations
remain brighter than the outlook for local newspapers:
74Average Percent of TV Station Revenue Produced by News
46.1% 44.9% 44.6% 44.7%
42.8% 43.5%
42.0%
39.7%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Sources: Pew Project for Excellent in Journalism, 2010 Report26
People are watching as much TV as ever. The average amount of time Americans spent consuming major me-
dia rose from 10.6 hours in 2008 to 11 hours in 2010, with the portion of time devoted to TV remaining fixed at 40
percent.28
With viewing habits more fragmented, broadcast TV has retained some clout as an effective way to reach large num-
bers—not to the extent that it has in the past but still more than most cable networks. As a result, significant ad spending on
broadcast TV will continue.
media Share of u.s. advertising (1949–2009)
Share of total
Newspapers TV and Cable Radio Internet
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1949 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 2009
Source: Martin Langeveld at Nieman Journalism Lab; data from NAA, TVB, IAB, McCann
A significant element that contributed to newspapers’ gloomy fate does not exist in the local TV drama: classified adver-
tising. While the lion’s share of newspapers’ revenue drop resulted from classified ads fleeing to free or low-cost online
venues, classifieds were never important to local TV’s bottom line. (See Chapter 1, Newspapers.)
Political advertising is soaring and is expected to grow in the future. In January 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down portions of a national campaign finance law, making it far
easier for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. Borrell Associates, a consult-
ing firm that focuses on local media and advertising, estimates that the court ruling generated additional political
advertising totaling $400 million in the 2010 elections.29 This created a windfall for local TV stations: in 2010, politi-
75cal advertisers spent an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion on local TV stations, which may be as much as 100 percent
more than in 2008—despite that 2008 was a presidential election year and 2010 was not.30
POLITICAL SPENDING ON LOCAL TV
Non-election Year Election Year
2005 $479 million
2006 $2 billion
2007 $357 million
2008 $1.5 billion
2009 $923 million
2010 $2.3 billion
Source: Pew State of the News Media 201131 citing Campaign Media Analysis Group/Television Bureau of Advertising
Broadcasters are demanding and getting higher payments for their programming from cable operators in the form of
“retransmission” fees. That means that the loss of local TV advertising as more viewers switch to cable will be at least
partly offset by an increase in the fees that the highly profitable cable operators pay to local TV stations for broadcast
programming.32
RETRANSMISSION FEES FOR LOCAL TELEVISION SIGNALS
Spending (in millions)
$2,000
$1,500
$1,000
$500
$0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010* 2011* 2012*
Source: Pew State of the News Media 201133
*Projected for 2010–2012
The Current State of Local TV News
Today, the most popular source for local news is television. On “a typical day,” 78 percent of Americans say they get
news from their local TV news station—more than from newspapers, the Internet, or the radio.34 Fifty percent of all
Americans watch local TV news “regularly.” Viewership rates have been declining over the years—along with con-
sumption rates for all other non-Internet news sources—but they still remain higher than those for any other single
news source.35
In addition, evidence is growing that, after a slow start, local TV stations are becoming important sources
for news online. In fact, local TV news sites rank among the most popular news websites (those with at least a half a
million monthly unique visitors), along with newspaper sites.36
76In other words, neither the ongoing migration of viewers to cable TV nor the growth of the Internet has
changed the basic fact that most Americans turn to their local TV news team for local news.
Indeed, it could be argued that the “media food chain” has changed in a way that presents an historic oppor-
tunity for local TV news.
There Is More Local TV News
While newspapers have been printing fewer pages, the average number of hours of news aired by local TV stations has
increased by 35 percent in the last seven years, according to the RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey, conducted
by Robert Papper for the Radio Television Digital News Association and Hofstra University, where he is a professor.
Hours of Local News (Weekdays)
2003 3.7
2004 3.6
2005 3.8
2006 4.1
2007 4.1
2008 4.6
2009 5.0
2 3 4 5
Source: Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)/Hofstra
Surveys based on survey responses of news directors37
In 2009, despite the depressed economy, 28.6 percent of all local stations—and almost 40 percent of those
in the largest markets—added newscasts.
Changes in Local Newscasts (2009 vs. 2008)
All News Stations, Big 4 Affiliates and Other Stations
All Big Four Affiliates: Other Commercial
Local TV News Changes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcast TV Stations
Added a Newscast 28.2% 42.9%
Added a Cut a Newscast 12.5% 18.2%
28.6% Newscast No Changes 59.3% 38.9%
No 57.7%
Changes 13.7% Cut a
Newscast
Station Market Size
Station Market Size
Changes 1 –25 26–50 51–100 101–150 151+
Added a Newscast 39.6% 22.6% 41.9% 19.7% 12.5%
Cut a Newscast 20.8% 16.1% 13.5% 10.0% 8.3%
No Changes 39.6% 61.3% 44.6% 70.3% 79.2%
Source: RTDNA/Hofstra 2010 Annual Survey
77In 2009, news directors said they expected to increase the amount of news they offered in the coming year.
Amount of local News Planned in 2010
All News Stations, Big 4 Affiliates and Other Stations
All Big Four Affiliates: Other Commercial
TV Local News Changes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcast TV Stations
Increase 31.6% 50.0%
“Not Sure” 8.2% Decrease 1.7% 0%
32.6% Increase
Same 57.9% 41.7%
1.8%
“Not Sure” 8.8% 8.3%
Decrease
57.4%
Same
Station Market Size
Station Market Size
Changes 1 –25 26–50 51–100 101–150 151+
Increase 34.9% 26.2% 32.6% 34.9% 30.6%
Decrease 1.6% 4.8% 1.1% 1.2% 1.6%
Same 54.0% 59.5% 56.2% 56.6% 62.9%
“Not Sure” 9.5% 9.5% 10.1% 7.2% 4.8%
Source: RTDNA/Hofstra 2010 Survey. 38
The main reason for the increased hours: stations are adding or expanding “early-bird” morning news shows,
beginning at 4:30 a.m. or even earlier.39 Brian Bracco, vice president of news for Hearst Television Inc.’s 29 stations,
suggests that these shows fill useful niches for the local viewer:
“They are starting their day earlier and are working harder and longer, and they are not at home at 5 or 6p.m.—
so that’s where their source of news is.... [Consumers] need to know the weather, the traffic, get around the traffic
jam.... [The mentality is] ‘I want to be smart when I go to work and want to know the latest.’”40
Post-Newsweek Stations, the Washington Post’s broadcasting division, which added early-bird news to many of its
stations, believes that both additions draw in more revenue and make it more likely that viewers will tune in to later broad-
casts. Deborah Collura, vice president and managing director of news at Post-Newsweek’s seven television stations, says:
“Yes, it generates more revenue when you have these.... They [the sales department] need more inventory. I also think it gives
you a jumpstart, a head start on your other newscasts. You are setting the plate earlier.”41
As an economic matter, adding more newscasts is often cheaper than using syndicated programming. A
Midwestern medium-market local TV station can acquire a syndicated show like Oprah for a half a million dollars
a year, or The Ellen DeGeneres Show or Rachael Ray for a third of that cost. But adding a newscast can involve simply
shifting resources and adding one show producer.42 Steve Schwaid, director of news and digital content at WGCL-CBS
in Atlanta, anticipates that adding a newscast will bring many advantages, including economic ones: “We’ll add some
staff, it won’t be as expensive as syndication, but we’ll create a greater local footprint for ourselves on the market, and
[it] creates more ad revenue.”43
In addition to adding newscasts, many local TV stations have become major online sources of news. (See
Chapter 4, Internet.) And, if they broadcast in high definition on their primary channel, they typically have several
additional, multicast channels available to program. Some station groups are using those new digital channels to air
less expensive programming or as a way to repurpose existing news and programming content. Some are using them
for weather reports, Spanish-language broadcasts, or live breaking news coverage when an emergency in the station’s
community calls for around-the-clock coverage.
78The bottom line: while newspapers are producing less news, local TV stations are producing more newscasts
and news content.
While the Volume of News Has Risen, Staffs Have Shrunk
Rather than adding staff to sustain this increase in news, TV stations on average have actually cut personnel—“with
the median full-time staff dropping from 32 in 2006 to 29 in 2009,” according to Pew’s State of the News Media 2011
report.44 Nearly two-thirds of local TV news directors reported staff cuts in 2009, according to the RTDNA/Hofstra An-
nual Survey.45 And two-thirds of news directors said that despite the expanded number of hours of news, their budgets
had decreased.46
Most news directors in 2009 reported that they had decreased their staff size.
Average Local News Staff (2009 vs. 2008)
Big Four Affiliates: Other Commercial
All TV News ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcast TV Stations
Increased 11.5% 11.4% 15.2%
Decreased 64.1% 64.0% 60.6%
Same 24.1% 24.2% 24.2%
“Don’t Know” 0.3% 0.3% 0%
47
Source: RTDNA/Hofstra Surveys based on survey responses of news directors
When asked about their planned hiring in 2010, however, news directors were optimistic, with those plan-
ning to hire outnumbering those planning to make staffing cuts.
Planned Staff Changes in 2010
Big Four Affiliates: Other Commercial
All TV News ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcast TV Stations
Increase 22.7% 23.0% 27.3%
Decrease 7.1% 7.8% 3.0%
Same 60.8% 60.8% 54.5%
“Don’t Know” 9.4% 8.4% 15.2%
Source: Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)/Hofstra 2010 Annual Survey
based on survey responses of news directors48
Excellence in Local TV News
Have these productivity gains—more hours of news with fewer staff—helped or hindered quality? Of course, it is dif-
ficult to generalize. Despite the industry’s problems, the best of the local TV stations are still producing high-quality
broadcast journalism of tremendous value to the community—while reaching a far broader audience than newspa-
pers in terms of size, diversity, and socioeconomic status. It is hard to overstate the importance and value of these
broadcasts.
During emergencies, the local TV station is often considered to be as vital a part of the local community as
the police and fire departments, and despite cutbacks most local TV reporters and managers believe they still are able
to excel in the midst of a crisis. Mike Devlin, president and general manager of WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, asked:
“Does the FCC know that WWL-TV [a Belo-owned New Orleans station] stayed on for 16 days straight without a commercial
during Hurricane Katrina? Or that KHOU in Houston stayed on for Hurricane Ike down there...for 60 hours? When I look at
that WWL coverage, there were people that, if they didn’t have WWL, would not have had a connection to the outside world
or have known what was going on.”49
79When Nashville suffered major floods in May 2010, the national press gave it little attention, but WKRN-
TV stayed on for 16-hour stretches, airing both heart-wrenching human-interest stories and practical information.
“These stations were lifelines,” says Matthew Zelkind, WKRN news director. “We told them where to get water, where
to get shelter, how to get the water in drinkable condition.” The station used its website to stream its broadcast and
solicited and aired information from users via email, Twitter, and by phone. Zelkind praised the staff’s dedication
during such times, noting one case in which a photographer rushed to the office to deliver video, even though part of
his own house had burned down. “His duty was to his profession. That guy’s a hero.”50
A group of the nation’s largest local television groups including Gannett, Belo Corp., and Raycom Media, have
written that their stations provide around-the-clock coverage of severe weather events at a significant cost in resources
and lost advertising revenue. In a filing with the Future of Media proceeding, they noted the example of WFMY-TV in
Greensboro, North Carolina, interrupting its coverage of the highly popular Sweet 16 round of the NCAA basketball
tournament to provide viewers with critical information about tornados that entered the region. The station moved its
coverage of the basketball game to a multicast channel and used its primary signal to bring critical safety information
to viewers. They also pointed to WPEC in West Palm Beach, Florida, and KFDM in Beaumont, Texas, which both rou-
tinely air half-hour hurricane preparation programs before emergencies occur (and offer print and online hurricane
survival guides), in addition to extensive coverage when emergencies do happen.51
In March 2010, Jane Mago, general counsel for the NAB, testified at an FCC workshop:
“Just this past weekend for example, stations in Hawaii helped local residents prepare for the tsunami predicted to strike the
Islands as a result of the massive earthquake in Chile, which fortunately did not come to pass. Stations in the mid-Atlantic and
Northeast have been assisting their viewers for months now during this record-breaking snow season.”52
Local Stations Are Becoming More Creative Online
For many years, local television stations invested very little in their websites or digital strategies, using them primar-
ily as promotional vehicles or to list programming schedules. Today, however, stations and station groups are paying
full attention to the second and third of the “three screens” available to news programmers: TV, the Internet, and
mobile devices. WWL in New Orleans, for instance, relied on its website to stay connected to its community during
Hurricane Katrina. Even when weather conditions relegated its news crews to back-up studios in Baton Rouge and to
the station’s transmitter site, information was consistently available on its website. WWL.com offered forums where
friends and relatives impacted by the storm could search online for each other, and its streaming coverage allowed
displaced storm victims as far away as Georgia and Tennessee
to learn about their community and their homes.53 The station
received awards for exemplary television and web coverage.54
KING-TV in Seattle found wasted
Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV serves a market of over 3 mil- funds in the ferry system;
lion people, and its website consistently ranks as one of the 9NewsKUSA in Denver uncovered
nation’s top broadcast sites, drawing an audience of more than
3 million monthly unique visitors. The station was one of the
mortgage fraud; and WTHR in
first in the country to launch local classified ads, and though Indianapolis did an eight-month
70 percent of its traffic is driven by classified ads, its news and investigation into how state officials
traffic is also among the top ten in the country.55
During historic snowstorms in the winter of 2010,
inflated job statistics.
crews at Hearst Television–owned WGAL in Lancaster, Penn-
sylvania, could not navigate around the viewing area due to road closures and snow. So the station enlisted viewers to
help report the news, encouraging them to upload video, pictures, and information on the WGAL website to help alert
the community to hazardous areas and other safety issues. Viewers responded in large numbers.56
Social media can sharpen coverage, bringing in new information and nuance. KDFW (FOX4) in Dallas has
200,000 Facebook fans for the station or individual reporters, an asset it actively uses in its on air reporting and to
strengthen their bond with viewers. For instance, FOX4 recently was seeking examples of people who had mortgage
foreclosure problems and found relevant interview subjects from among their Facebook fans. And News director
80Maria Barrs noted that after the station recently ran a piece about drinking among some area Lockheed workers, view-
ers pointed out that two of the workers recorded were contractors not employees—a distinction that the station then
made in the follow-up piece. Then other Facebook fans suggested if they checked out a different parking lot, they’d
find workers smoking drugs, a tip that also turned out to be true “Social media is a really powerful tool and we use it
all the time,” Barrs says. “I’ve never seen our job as being a one way street. But now there are intersections all over
the place.”57
Perhaps the most widespread new web initiative among local stations is the development of “hyperlocal”
community websites, which allows for more granular coverage. In Charlotte, North Carolina, alone, Raycom Me-
dia has launched 60 community websites that will offer neighborhood-based hyperlocal websites.58 DataSphere, the
company building the sites for Raycom, is also launching
160 neighborhood sites for other broadcasters, including
Fisher Communication.59 In June 2010, Gannett Broadcast- “Does the FCC know that WWL TV [in
ing launched hyperlocal sites in 10 markets.60 Belo Corp. has New Orleans] stayed on for 16 days
partnered with Broadcast Interactive Media (BIM), which
straight without a commercial during
has over 90 affiliates in 73 markets. BIM’s products, such
as the user-generated content platform YouNews, allow Belo Hurricane Katrina?” says Mike Devline
stations’ website users to upload videos, photos, and stories of WFAA in Dallas. “Or that KHOU in
to local websites and also enables online contests, and con-
Houston stayed on for Hurricane Ike
tent exchange.61
These efforts have been rewarded, in part, with down there...for 60 hours?”
increased online ad revenue. Local TV online revenue was
$1.34 billion in 2010 compared with $1.08 billion in 2008.62
FOX Television Stations CEO, Jack Abernathy, has beens particularly bullish on the future of local TV news on tablets:
“I think you can assume a younger generation that’s going to expect to see television on portable devices soon. If it can
be scaled properly, it could be very, very big business.”63
Currently, the most popular content on TV station websites is weather, followed by local newws. Some sta-
tions have launched specialized sites, like KWCH in Wichita whose Catch it Kansas covers high school sports statewide.
In Oklahoma, Griffin Communications’ OKBlitz.com handles sports for the entire state and was projecting profits in
2010.64
Although newspapers still produce the number one websites in most large markets, local TV stations lay
claim to the top local sites in 14 markets, including Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, and Salt Lake City.65An
FCC analysis of three cities—Toledo, Richmond, and Seattle—revealed that the dominant online sources of local
news were either local TV stations or newspapers. (See Chapter 21, Types of News.)
The 2010 RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey of news directors found that staffing for television web-
sites on average has gone up by as much as one full-time employee and one-part time employee over the last year.66
As more stations invest meaningful dollars into building up their hyperlocal web coverage, it will be important to see
whether they will also invest in additional reporters to help provide this more granular coverage.
Although most of the discussion about charging for content has been driven by newspaper companies, some
local TV executives are mulling over the idea of paid products for their stations, as well. Rich Boehne, CEO of the E.W.
Scripps Company, says that they will experiment with charging for certain premium services in the coming year. In
general, he believes that the cookie-cutter nature of many local TV stations hinders their ability to develop and adapt
to successful new business models. “Turn on the local news and it all looks the same, times four,” he says. Audiences
will therefore have no compelling reason to stick with a particular station, or that medium in general, over time. He
argues that the contraction of newspapers creates opportunities for local TV stations, but only if they seriously invest
in creating original content: “Our job depends on great original content and agenda setting.”67
A Few Are Trying Innovative Collaborations With Independent Digital Ventures
A small but increasing number of local TV stations have begun partnering with digital news operations to bolster
coverage of their communities. San Diego’s KNSD-TV, owned and operated by NBC, has joined forces with voiceof-
81sandiego.org—one of a growing number of nonprofit online news outlets that have emerged at the community level
across the country—to produce two regular segments: “San Diego Fact Check,” a roughly five-minute piece analyzing
the statements or assertions of local officials, and “San Diego Explained,” which tackles difficult subjects like public
pensions. “They had depth of reporting that we could benefit from,” says Greg Dawson, vice president of news at
KNSD. “It gives us something very strong that’s unique to that show.”68 Scott Lewis, voiceofsandiego.org CEO, views
the arrangement as “fantastic,” as it gives the site significant exposure and they get paid a retainer for their services.69
The partnership became the basis for a commitment made by Comcast as part of its merger with NBC to attempt to
create partnerships “similar in approach and level of involvement and support to the arrangement” in four other cit-
ies.70 Additionally, NBC recently solicited proposals to participate in local news-sharing partnerships from nonprofit
online news organizations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas-Ft. Worth,
Washington, and Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut.71
In Spokane, Washington, KXLY-TV has partnered with the Inlander, a weekly alternative newspaper, in an
exclusive cross-promotional agreement that allows the station first-run rights on the paper’s long-form investigative
stories. Also in Spokane, KREM plans to partner with a for-profit website called Tributes.com to offer online and on-
air obituaries and share revenue with funeral directors. Collaborations are even happening between long-time com-
petitors. In Seattle, KING 5 has teamed up with the Seattle Times to create a local online ad network that potentially
will offer revenue to local blogs and hyperlocal sites.72
But these are only isolated examples of local stations trying to enhance their coverage through partnerships
with other journalistic outfits. There are more opportunities. Newspapers are struggling to have more impact with
fewer resources. Hundreds of new local news websites are producing good local journalism but lack a sufficient
audience. Local public radio has begun to invest in local news. All of them have content—and need exposure. Mean-
while, local TV stations are producing more and more hours of news, with fewer people. They have airtime but lack
sufficient content. It seems obvious that local TV stations could vastly improve their service to their community by
pursuing local partnerships in ways they have not yet explored.
Mobile and Local TV
Local TV stations are also attempting to capitalize on opportunities presented by the mobile phone. While many
have developed applications (“apps”) for phones, local TV stations are also experimenting with a very different idea:
beaming broadcast signals directly to the phone. In April 2010,
12 of the major broadcast groups—Belo Corp., Cox Media
KNSD-TV in San Diego has a
Group, E.W. Scripps Company, FOX Broadcasting Company,
partnership with the nonprofit local Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., ION Television,
website Voice of San Diego. “They Media General Inc., Meredith Corporation, NBCUniversal
Media, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc., and Raycom Media—
had depth of reporting that we could
announced plans for a stand-alone joint venture that would
benefit from” says Greg Dawson oft utilize their existing broadcast spectrum to deliver content to
KNSD. “It gives us something very mobile devices. On November 18, 2010, the Mobile Content
Venture (MCV) announced that by the end of 2011 it would be
strong that’s unique to that show.”
delivering mobile video service to markets serving more than
40 percent of the U.S. population. In early 2010, an experi-
ment was conducted in which consumers were given phones equipped to receive broadcast signals. The most viewed
type of programming: local news.73
Investigative Powerhouse Stations
Local television news has broken numerous important, high-impact stories in the last decade. In 2000, KHOU in
Houston broke the Bridgestone/Firestone tire story, which resulted in a federal investigation and forced the Ford
Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone to recall 6.5 million potentially defective tires at a cost of $300 million.
WBBM in Chicago blew the whistle on dangers at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, and KMOV in St. Louis chronicled the
failures of the East St. Louis school system. In fact, the 2010 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, the top
82honors for broadcast journalism, gave more awards to local TV than in recent years. Recipients included KING-TV in
Seattle, for its four-month investigation of wasted funds in the ferry system; 9NewsKUSA in Denver, for its six-month
investigation of mortgage fraud; WKOW in Madison, for its eight-month investigation of the Wisconsin Bureau of
Consumer Protection; and WTHR in Indianapolis, for its eight-month investigation into how state officials inflated
job statistics.74
In comments filed with the FCC, broadcasters pointed to WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky, whose investiga-
tion of sexual conduct between prison guards and inmates led to a new state law. In explaining the role TV stations
play in promoting public health, the broadcasters cited the ways in which,
during the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic, stations offered community-specific Early experiments
information about vaccinations and how citizens could obtain them.75
RTDNA, which represents news directors, declared in its written
conducted in mobile TV on
comments that most broadcasters are good stewards of their licenses and phones indicate that local
go to great lengths to be reliable, dynamic sources of local news and infor- news was the most viewed
mation.76 They cited KHOU in Houston, which won a regional Edward R.
Murrow Award for its two-year investigation of the Texas National Guard.
programming category.
The station’s investigation, which began with an inquiry into allegations
of harassment and discrimination against female officers, then uncovered instances of corrupt practices and misap-
propriation of funds by the Texas National Guard’s commanding officers. Ultimately, Governor Rick Perry relieved
the Texas Guard’s top officers of their command and installed new leadership, which for the first time in Texas history
included a female commander.77
Evidence shows that, while many stations have cut back on in-depth and beat reporting, quite a few have
preserved their “investigative team.” The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that “al-
though the substance of this enterprise reporting can vary widely by station, stations appear to have protected their
spotlight and investigative teams as important to their brand.” In some cases, this is more than merely semantics.
Schurz Communications Inc. owns six television stations, including KWCH in Wichita, Kansas, and KY3 KYTV in
Springfield, Missouri. Marci Burdick, senior vice president of news for Schurz, explains why both stations have kept
their award-winning investigative units:
“Unless we are doing news and information that people can get nowhere else, we are nothing but a commodity. I think
companies covering car wrecks and traffic accidents are kidding themselves if they think they are going to survive the Internet
Age because that information can be gotten by anyone with an iPhone. So we have always preached in our company—and it
is in our core values—serving our communities with deep information.”78
Mike Devlin, general manager for Belo Corp.’s flagship station, WFAA in Dallas, Texas, says Belo senior
management supports the decision to keep a strong investigative operation:
“There’s a company culture that holds great value in that for the impact it has on local communities. The cable companies are
not going to do it, [nor are] the telephone companies, the satellite companies.... The only people who can do this type of
reporting are local television stations or local newspapers.”79
Several top local television groups, including Belo, Gannett, Post-Newsweek, and Raycom Media, have stated
that they understand the importance of investigative reporting. They pointed to WPLG in Miami, which broke the
news that inmates, many of whom did not have licenses to drive, were permitted to drive county vehicles while on
work release. After these TV reports, Florida enacted a new law banning the practice.80 At KHOU in Houston, the sta-
tion’s executive producer for investigations is optimistic:
“From the standpoint of my own company and station, not only have we not reduced our investigative reporting efforts, but
we now have an additional group of newsroom reporters selected to focus on generally shorter-turn investigations. Those
efforts—in conjunction with the unit I have been a part of for the past 13 years (where we tend to focus on long-term, large-
scope investigations)—has definitely increased the enterprise/investigative output of our station.”81
83Although most discussions of the fate of local news focus on newspapers, the number
one source for local news today is actually television. On “a typical day,” 78 percent
of Americans say they get news from their local television news station—more than
newspapers, the Internet or radio.
At small-market station KBCI in Boise, Idaho, two reporters uncovered a trail of financial corruption by
Boise’s mayor and his chief of staff that led to the resignation and indictment of both officials. Even a station in Mon-
roe, Louisiana, was celebrated for its investigation of corruption within the local National Guard in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.82
However, while many stations excel, several trends in local news are discouraging.
Scant Coverage of Important Local Issues
Topics like education, health care, and local government get relatively small amounts of coverage these days. A study
of Los Angeles newscasts over 14 randomly selected days between August 1 and September 30, 2009, conducted by
the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, found that stories about
local civic issues impacting L.A. residents’ lives, like transportation, community health, the environment, education,
taxes, activism, and fundraisers took up one minute and 16 seconds of the monitored half-hour broadcasts. Stories about
local government led the newscasts only 2.5 percent of the time. Only one out of 100 newscast leads was about the
developing budget crisis.83
A 2009 Michigan State University study of local media serving 98 metropolitan central cities and 77 subur-
ban cities revealed that city government received about one-third less television coverage than crime stories did.
Local TV News Coverage Analyzed by Topic (2009)
Business
All Else
18.2% 2.8%
12.9% City Government
Human/Community
13.0%
Interest
4.0% County Government
0.6% Regional Government
4.1% Education
Accidents/Disasters 12.2%
32.4%
Crimes/Courts
Source: Data Adapted from News Media Coverage of City Governments in 2009-Michigan State University84
Local election coverage on commercial television stations is particularly lacking. In 2004, a study of local TV
news coverage in 11 media markets found that only 8 percent of the 4,333 broadcasts during the month before the
election had stories that even mentioned local races. During the run-up to the elections, the stations produced eight
times more coverage on accidental injuries than on local races, according to the Lear Center at the USC Annenberg
84Local Media News Coverage by Topic and media Type (2009)
By Media Types
Story Topic Newspaper Television Radio Citizen Journalism
City Government 24.5% 12.9% 16.6% 16.5%
County Government 2.0% 4.0% 5.7% 6.1%
Regional Government 0.4% 0.6% 0.7% 0.5%
Education 8.7% 4.1% 5.3% 3.3%
Crimes/Courts 17.8% 32.4% 29.3% 14.6%
Accident/Disasters 4.1% 12.2% 9.9% 3.3%
Human/Community Interest 24.1% 13.0% 12.2% 27.4%
Business 16.8% 18.2% 17.3% 23.6%
All Else 1.7% 2.8% 2.9% 4.7%
N 3185 2870 543 212
Source: Data Adapted from News Media Coverage of City Governments in 2009-Michigan State University84
School. Meanwhile, the stations were flooded with TV ads about local races. In states with competitive Senate races,
four times as many hours were given to advertisements as to coverage of the race. Yet less than one percent of the
political stories that were done critiqued the ads. Among the examples cited in the Lear report:
“In Seattle, where there was an extremely close gubernatorial race, 95 percent of the half-hours captured in that market in the
month before the election contained no stories at all about the race for governor. Time spent on teasers, bumpers and intro
music in Seattle outnumbered time covering the Washington gubernatorial race by 14-to-one.
“Ten of the 11 markets in the sample had a race for U.S. Senate, yet 94 percent of the broadcasts analyzed in these markets
failed to contain a single story about a Senate race.
“In Denver, where there was a highly competitive U.S. Senate race, 88 percent of the half-hours of news studied contained no
stories about the Senate race. Six times as much time was devoted to crime, and twice as much time was devoted to stories
about accidental injury, than to stories about the Senate race.
“Los Angeles stations collectively devoted less time to the Senate race in a month than they collectively gave to bumper music
and teasers in a single night.
“Not one story about a race for the U.S. House appeared in the Los Angeles stories captured during this period....
“Non-candidate races—stories about ballot or bond initiatives—accounted for about four-and-a-half percent of all campaign
stories captured in the 11 markets....
“Local races accounted for just 6 percent of all stories aired about elections in the 11 markets, compared to 61 percent devoted
to the presidential election, but stations aired a sizable number of stories about the voting process....
“Only 3 percent of the campaign stories on the six local Spanish-language stations studied (in New York, Los Angeles and
Miami) focused on local races.”85
It is unlikely that matters have improved since then. In 2006, viewers of local news in the Midwest got 2.5
times more information about local elections from paid advertisements than from newscasts, according to a Univer-
sity of Wisconsin study. The average length of a political piece was 76 seconds (down from 89 seconds in 2002), and
“most of the actual news coverage of elections on early and late-evening broadcasts was devoted to campaign strategy
and polling, which outpaced reporting on policy issues by a margin of over three to one.”86
Although there is no directly comparable study regarding the 2010 election, it seems that local coverage fared
no better and may have fared worse: Writing in PoliticsDaily.com, veteran political reporter Walter Shapiro described
a campaign rally of a candidate in a highly contested gubernatorial primary in South Carolina just 72 hours before
Election Day:
85“[T]here was one thing missing from the picturesque scene—any South Carolina newspaper, wire service, TV or radio reporters.
What we are witnessing in this election cycle is the slow death of traditional statewide campaign journalism. I noticed the
same pattern (and the same nearly reporter-free campaign trail) in Kentucky last month as I covered libertarian Rand Paul’s
decisive defeat of the state Republican establishment in the GOP Senate primary.”87
It is not only politics that gets limited coverage. So do local business and economic matters. The University of
Wisconsin study indicated that 47 seconds out of a typical half-hour broadcast related to “business/economy,” while
another study by Wisconsin and USC Annenberg, in 2004, of over 8,000 hours of programming on 4,082 broadcasts
in 44 markets, also found that only 47 seconds per half hour were devoted to business and economy.88
Less Depth
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, testified at an FCC hear-
ing that the amount of in-depth accountability journalism on many local TV newscasts has been declining for a while.
From 1998 to 2001, Rosenstiel said, the percentage of stories generated by “enterprise reporting” (for example, dig-
ging into the details of city, county, or state records; asking bold questions of elected officials or corporate leaders) as
opposed to stories based on press releases, chasing the action on the police scanner, or following a story already in
the local newspaper, fell by 30 percent. Pew researchers also found an increase in instances of cameras being sent to
events without correspondents, a higher percentage of “tell” stories (those narrated by the anchors), and greater use
of material from press releases and syndication. The percentage of syndicated stories (that came from a national or re-
gional feed) rose by 62 percent during that period. “And there is every
reason to believe that this phenomenon of stretching resources thinner
has continued through this decade,” Rosenstiel concluded.89 “Companies covering car
In Washington, D.C., the Media Policy Initiative team of the wrecks and traffic accidents
New America Foundation has conducted reviews of several local news
markets as part of its Information Community Case Study Project and
are kidding themselves if
concluded that local television news programming—even in the na- they think they are going to
tion’s capital—does not regularly address hard news subjects in the survive the Internet age,”
same depth as other media does.90
One cause (and effect) of the thinning coverage over the years
says Marci Burdick of Schurz
is that fewer TV newsrooms now maintain a beat system. Traditional Communications.
beats in local TV newsrooms included education, health, business, re-
ligion, government/politics, and crime/courts. Some stations have ad-
opted hybrid models in which reporters do both general assignment and some specialties. Howard Finberg, director
of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute says, “The basic beat reporting in a local TV newsroom is under a huge
amount of stress. The institutional knowledge [of a beat reporter] is the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff, and
that is disappearing.”91 Wally Dean, a longtime news executive, coauthor of We Interrupt This Newscast, and currently
director of training for the Committee for Concerned Journalists, says he is seeing stations refer to people as “beat
reporters” when they are more accurately described as the point person for press releases on a particular topic. “Fre-
quently the so-called ‘health reporter’ fronts the heath news but is using hand-outs from the health industry or using
material from one of the feeds coming into the TV station,” Dean says.92
TV news reporters appear to have less opportunity than they once did for time-intensive journalism. Two-
thirds of news leaders responding to the Annenberg Institutions of Democracy Media Survey in 2005 said that profit
pressures had reduced the number of stories they could assign that take time and money to report. Fifty-six percent
said profit pressures had in fact increased the number of “quick and dirty stories” they ran. Watchdog journalism, the
study reported, suffered the most.93
Many also see a growing emphasis on performance and aesthetics. “The criteria for hiring has changed,” says
Mathew Zelkind, station manager of WKRN in Nashville. “The Walter Cronkites and John Chancellors are a dying
a breed. In many cases, you don’t have journalists, you have performers. Aesthetics matters a lot. There are a lot of
people on TV who wouldn’t have been 26 years ago. A lot of it is economically driven.” He added that his station has
86about one-third fewer reporters than it did 15 years ago. “We have Nearly a fourth of the crime leads
fewer people, less specialization. Just fewer people on the street.”94
in the Los Angeles stations were
Despite Notable Exceptions, Investigative Reporting Is Declining at Many about crimes that did not take
Stations place in the LA media market.
The investigative operations mentioned earlier are important but
increasingly rare. Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a non-
profit organization devoted to “improving the quality of investigative reporting,” states that submissions from local TV
stations for its top awards have fallen by more than half since 1999.95 Broadcast membership in IRE has also dropped,
from 874 broadcast members in 2000 down to 648 in 2010.96 Longtime news executive Fred Young says investigative
units have become financially hard to justify: “Investigative people, in the eyes of some of the people who looked at
the bottom line of those stations, were not as productive as the reporters turning a story a day. Investigative has suf-
fered.”97
The Columbia Journalism Review reports that when it comes to making personnel cuts, investigative teams
often are among the first casualties:
“Their reporters [the investigative unit] tend to be some of the newsroom’s most experienced and highly paid, and in some
cases the unit is assigned a dedicated producer and photographer. That adds up to the kind of money that many cash-
strapped stations well might decide to save or reallocate—no matter how prestigious the unit.”98
Roberta Baskin, a longtime investigative reporter, won a duPont-Columbia award for a series she did for
WJLA in Washington, D.C., called “Drilling for Dollars,” about a chain of dental clinics doing unnecessary and painful
root canals on children in order to collect money from Medicaid.99 The day after she received the award, she and the
rest of the station’s I-team were laid off.100 Baskin, now working in the federal government, says:
“There is no longer any investigative reporting to speak of in Washington, D.C. It breaks my heart to see the shift toward doing
more crime, fires, weather stories, instead of spending the time and resources to tell the public what they really need to
know.”101
Bill Lord, the station manager who cut Baskin’s team, says that letting his I-team go was a painful decision
purely based on the economic downturn and the timing of contracts.
“It really wasn’t a decision so much about the I-team as much as it was...a year and a half ago...we were, like every other station in the
country, faced with a complete fall-off in revenues, and we had to adjust the expense line....It was the timing of contracts, which caused
us to go that direction to save money. The investigative people tended to be higher paid than the others, but they also had contract
windows that allowed us to do it in a timely fashion. As difficult as that was, we had to make that call.”102
Matthew Zelkind of WKRN in Nashville offers a similar description of the financial pressures that squeeze
investigative reporting: “Investigative definitely suffers. One hundred percent. Long-form stories are dying because
they’re not financially feasible.”103 In previous years, Zelkind’s staff produced long pieces on homeless children, prob-
lems with the water treatment system, and a high school that had more than a dozen pregnant teens. He said he was
told, “not to do it anymore.”104 After a recent change in general managers, though, the station is doing more long-form
pieces again, he said.
In some cases, critics argue that stations have continued to employ the “I-team” label while producing in-
creasingly frivolous “exposés.” Former WBZ-TV Boston investigative reporter Joe Bergantino, now director of the
New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR), a nonprofit based at Boston University, laments the trend:
“Exploding picnic tables, dangerous department store hooks, the kind of scare-tactic stories that really, I think, have cheapened
the whole meaning of what investigative reporting is.... They are using ‘investigative reporting’ more as a label rather than
87a real thing. The trend is that stations call promotable stories ‘investigative,’ while shrinking or disbanding their investigative
units. Serious, in-depth investigative reporting happens on rare occasions in local television news.”105
Bergantino left his 27-year career in TV news two years ago when he was told that his station would have to
start doing fewer “in-depth projects.” He believes that these cutbacks in substantive reporting are “costing the view-
ers, the citizens, a lot...in that they’re not getting the kind of information they need from television news to hold the
government accountable, and the powerful accountable, and to be informed citizens in a democracy.”106 Byron Harris
of WFAA, who broke the savings and loan crisis story in the 1980s, says “Allowing public officials, corporate leaders,
and community leaders to go unprobed, unchallenged, and unquestioned is a big problem.”107
One way that a number of TV stations have managed to preserve some investigative capacity is by teaming up
with nonprofits. Such collaborations were pioneered at the network level. For instance, ProPublica, a nonprofit inves-
tigative entity, has partnered on various projects with ABC, CNN, CNBC, and CBS’s 60 Minutes. . However, to work,
nonprofit groups must figure out ways of earning money. New England Center for Investigative Reporting, another
nonprofit, has produced a dozen multimedia investigative piec-
es in the last 18 months. Bergantino, the group’s director, says,
A study of local TV news coverage “There’s an opportunity for television stations in all the major cit-
ies where centers like ours exist, to essentially boost the quality
in eleven media markets found that
and quantity of investigative reporting by connecting with our
only 8 percent of broadcasts in the centers and paying them something for our work...to look to us
month before an election had stories to help fill that void.”108 However, he noted that his organization
has had difficulty getting paid for its work. Investigative News
even mentioning local races. Network (INN), an umbrella organization of 51 nonprofit news
organizations,109 has produced several series (including “Campus
Assaults,” which uncovered rapes at university fraternity houses
that administrators were hiding or ignoring), but CEO Kevin Davis says, “Local TV and radio outlets see it as a cheap
way to get investigative reporting, and while we want to push the content to a wide audience, we [INN members] have
to receive money for the work.”110
Bleeding Is Still Leading
For several decades, a popular saying about local TV news has been “If it bleeds, it leads,” referring to the tendency
of local stations to emphasize more sensational incidents, particularly crime stories. Recent studies show that this
tendency is alive and well, and may even be increasing.
> One out of three Los Angeles TV broadcasts led their newscast with a crime story, according to the USC An-
nenberg study.111
> In Baltimore, Maryland, crime was the number one topic on local TV news, representing 23 percent of stories,
twice as many as other subjects, including city government, and schools, according to the Pew Project for
Excellence in Journalism.112
> More than 44 percent of all stories aired by local television stations in the Michigan State study were about
crimes, accidents or disasters—twice the level found in newspapers serving the same area.113
> An earlier Pew study of 2,400 newscasts and 30,000 stories that aired from 1998 to 2002 indicated that an
even higher percentage of lead stories involved crime. “While crime, disasters and accidents make up 36% of
all stories studied in our 1998–2002 study, they made up 61% of all lead stories, those given the most time
and reporting resources on the air. And in subsequent, smaller 2005 studies crime, fires and disasters made
up 77% of lead stories.”114
Some news managers say that they emphasize crime because viewers want it. “If I had a penny for every
person that says ‘I do not watch that kind of stuff,’” says Steve Hertzke, former news director of KUTV in Salt Lake
88You can also read
